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Scraped Knees
Solace
Ididn’t know that my life would be weighed in near-misses. Linguistically, it barely made sense. How can younearlymiss something? The phrase has been used to describe dodged aircraft crashes, bombs that didn’t land, and accidents that never bore fruition.
That’s the thing about near-misses—they live in that sliver of space where collision introduces itself, only to diverge at the last second and find a different path. Leaving nothing but a smallwhat if.
My life was full of them. What if I hadn’t left my window open that night? What if I had gotten the nerve to tell people how I felt? What if I hadn’t gotten so drunk? What if I’d gone to the music conservatory instead of the four-year college my mom insisted on? What if…
The first near-miss was small, barely a scrape on my knee, and yet it left a mark I still carry.
It was first grade, and I’d been shoved to the ground at recess, gravel biting through my pants, by a boy with a mop of sable curls and gray eyes. He reminded me of a wolf, with his straight nose, and the stern line of his mouth. I shouted at him, scrambling to my hands when we locked eyes.
Jude Ransom.
The boy who came crashing into my life, only to barely escape catastrophe.
His brows were furrowed, a hand half-raised as if he wasn’t sure whether to step closer or run away. “I didn’t mean to, Solace.”
Turns out, I hadn’t been paying attention, and was nearly nailed by a flying tetherball. Which wasn’t all that surprising—I wasn’t the most attentive child. Jude had shoved me out of the way, but did not intend to send me crashing to the asphalt. He gave me his hand and helped me up, muttering another apology with a crooked smile.
Not all of them appeared that way though. Some near-misses didn’t break skin, they broke hearts, and those were the worst. There was nothing to bandage, and nowhere to place the blame.
The next came in third grade, under the wide arms of the oak behind the school. We’d been inventing kingdoms, arguing over who would rule, and laughing until our stomachs ached. Jude sat across from me, hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
“Solace,” he said, hesitant. “Will you be my girlfriend?”
My stomach flipped, and I blinked, caught between disbelief and panic. At nine, the idea was absurd. Funny, even. His girlfriend? “No.”
He nodded, pressing a smile into his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes. When we were young, Jude was inquisitive and gentle. His heart was often louder than his voice. “Why not?” he asked, standing to brush the dirt from his knees.
“We aren’t old enough.” At least, that’s what my mother told me.No boyfriends until you’re thirty, Solace.
He reached a hand out, and I gripped it. “One day we will be though.”
Jude pulled me to my feet, and I brushed the dirt from my pants. “When we’re bigger, yeah.”
“I’ll ask you again.”
“Okay,” I replied with a shrug. And that was it. When you’re nine, boyfriends and girlfriends are just a pact made between friends.
We’d grown up in the same town and went to the same school and had the same friends, but our lives never quite collided the way I’d always thought our souls had. If you’d asked Jude, he’d tell you it started in third grade when I told him I wouldn’t be his girlfriend. It was that ‘no’ that set off all the others. All our near-misses.
From there, it turned into birthday party invites. Co-partners on school science projects. Band concerts and basketball games. Volunteer hours. Movies with friends. Yet, somehow, our lives never quite converged. By ninth grade, it seemed as if we were destined for the friend zone regardless of how either of us may have felt.
It was early fall, we were assigned the same English class, and to both of our delight we’d been seated beside one another.
“Long time no see,” Jude said, bumping his shoulder lightly against mine. His hair had grown longer over the summer, curling enough to fall in front of his eyes. For once, he was taller than me, a fact he refused to point out, though I could tell he appeared smug about it.
I stole glances at him while digging my notebook out of my backpack. “Did you have a good summer?”
“Good enough.” He rubbed the back of his neck and smiled. “After space camp, we went on a cruise. What about you?”
I glanced down at my paper, the scribbles forming little spirals that didn’t mean anything. I didn’t want to tellhim my summer had been one long stretch of hospital appointments, waiting rooms, and whispered fears. That my mom had cancer, and I hadn’t been allowed the things I wanted most—not the midnight premiere of the movie I’d planned for, not the lazy afternoons with friends. And that for even considering my own disappointment I had deemed myself selfish.
Embarrassed.
